A Suspension on the Way to the Dance

I'm baaack.  Finally. 


"It goes on the blog."  I keep saying it. Every new wrinkle or bump in the transition road we're traveling.  It goes on the blog.  Except it hasn't been going on the blog, because I haven't been writing it.  Mea culpa.


So here goes again.  I'm going to try gluing my fingers to the keyboard come what may. American Lit papers, PowerPoint presentations on India's global economic position, research on varying viewpoints on euthanasia.  It all has to get done, but I will declare Mom Time on the laptop so I can share what else is happening besides homework in our house.  We continue to ride the autism roller coaster while we're at the transition carnival.  It's a white knuckle ride, and I think you should experience it with us. After all, why should we have all the fun?




So since it's freshest in my rapidly decaying, post-50 brain, we'll talk about latest first. The bad news. Our soon-to-graduate son was suspended for five days last week. After not having a serious incident in school for over a year and a half, I got the dreaded call from the assistant principal because FF pushed and threatened another student who decided to take it upon himself to tell FF why it was inappropriate to look over someone's shoulder while they were on the computer. FF felt belittled and insulted, and in absolutely no time at all, he rocketed from zero to sixty in the anger zone.  It's not a pretty picture when it happens. Seven weeks from graduation. Sigh. 


Why is this a transition issue? Because it means FF is still prone to this very dangerous type of over reaction.  And it means it could happen on the job. (IF he ever gets a job, of course--we'll explore that in another blog episode.) 


We explain it to him visually (i.e., "This is how the school measures what the other student did"--holding hand out flat, palm parallel with floor at about knee height.  "But this is how the school measures what you did"--holding hand out again, but this time higher than my head.).  And he does understand that he acted inappropriately and lost control of himself and his emotions. But, to our dismay, at the ripe old age of 18--yes, he's now 18--he's still very immature in a lot of ways. He's not remorseful and is still very angry at the other student.


This is the nasty side of autism that many people don't want to talk about. For us, it's gotten better as FF has gotten older, but obviously, it hasn't gone away.  And for the most part, because he's higher functioning, he's on the "front lines" every day at school.  I suspect that most students know he's different, but most don't know why. He does't have an aide. He doesn't rock or flap his hands or have most of the obvious stimming signs of autism. So I think people expect more of him.  Usually that's a good thing.  But not always. 


An employer should know about FF's emotional triggers what to do in the event that he would go off the deep end. Granted, there are probably plenty of adolescent teenagers who've been in fights at school, who go on to get jobs and have stellar careers. I'm betting they don't tell their potential employers about what went on in the high school hallway when they felt "dissed."  


I don't think it's necessarily fair that FF should have to disclose his anger issues when other teens don't.  But it's a safety issue, one we'll need to discuss with Voc Rehab and his disability services provider (if he's determined eligible for employment services). I guess I just feel obligated to let them know that when FF is in the anger zone, he can become physically aggressive, throw things, swear and be verbally abusive. He's an oversized, talkative teddy bear most of the time, but definitely not when he's in in the anger zone. We had been breathing sighs of relief, because we thought he had moved past these episodes, but it's scary to see this happen again. He could hurt someone, and the police could be involved. It's my ongoing nightmare.


To address these issues now, we need to be sure:


1)...there's a teacher in the room.  There was a sub on duty the day of the incident, but his actual teacher has been out sick (unbeknownst to us) for almost two weeks now. We're working with administration so that he can be in another classroom with a teacher he likes until his teacher returns and until we have a plan to reintroduce him to the class. It doesn't excuse FF's behavior, but inadequate supervision in a classroom for a long period of time is a recipe for disaster. 


2)...he learns to recognize when he's going off the deep end emotionally, knows exactly what to do about it, and practices that skill. So far, we've talked at home with him about what to do, but he needs to go through the motions in school with his teacher, a speech therapist and selected members of the administration. 


3)...his psychiatrist is kept in the loop. That's the other ugly little secret of autism: Many of our children are on some pretty heavy duty medications.  The great thing is that those meds have enabled him to attend school. Without them, I don't know where we would be.  The flip side is they all have side effects and things change as the child grows and develops.  Sometimes dosages need tweaking; sometimes we need a new med altogether. This was just one incident, but because it involved a suspension, we let the doc know.


He's back in school now, but his teacher isn't, which means things aren't back to normal, but they're better. 


So, we did have some good things happen last week too. (It's not all doom and gloom, I promise!) So that's my next post: the good news.  Stay tuned!